Furious council bosses have hit out at the NHS over targets to prevent bed blocking.

Leicestershire County Council fears it could have £22 million removed from its budget because it cannot hit revised targets being imposed for it to provide care for people when they are ready to be discharged from hospital.

The Conservative-run authority says NHS bosses have shifted the goalposts on the Delayed Transfer of Care (DTOC) targets.

In September the NHS said there should be no more than 3.5 hospital bed days lost per 100,000 because patients ready to leave had nowhere to go.

The council said it could meet the target by March but now the NHS says it must be achieved by November, to try to free up acute hospital beds for the winter, or funding could be withdrawn.

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The council’s director of health and care integration Cheryl Davenport said: “It has not been made clear by NHS England as to the scale of funds that could be withheld or how and when this would take place.”

However she said it was ‘a large level of risk to the council’s budget’ because it was unlikely to be achievable.

She said either £9 million the council received in March might be taken away or up to £22 million.

She added: “The rules for that have not been made clear as yet.”

Leicestershire County Council leader Nick Rushton

Council leader Nick Rushton said: “They don’t seem to make anything clear but we can be sure the numbers are absolutely of great significance to this authority.”

Council director of adult social care Jon Wilson said the NHS targets were perverse.

He said: “The county council is meeting the target for social care however we accept our NHS colleagues are more challenged in meeting their target.

“By threatening to remove the social care element of the BCF the local authority would not be able to meet our statutory responsibility.”

He said the council would then struggle to meet the demand for domicillary care, nursing care and residential care.

He said would actually increase the delays to people in hospital.

Cabinet member for health Ernie White said: “We have been put in a position where extremely reluctantly we have to accept this target being imposed.

“It is beyond frustrating given our good performance. It risks destabilising all our good local progress and that really is regrettable.

“We are being the subject of bad government.”

Deputy council leader Byron Rhodes said the target could be counter productive.

He said: “I can’t think of anything more stupid. It’s just incompetence by the senior management in the NHS.

“We’ll have to agree with it I suppose but you really have to wonder how much longer the Secretary of State (Jeremy Hunt) can put up with it.”

“Or how long we can put up with the secretary of state? It’s a mess.” added Coun Rushton.

He has subsequently drafted a letter to Communities secretary Sajid Javid complaining councils were being bullied.

Leicestershire is among 18 councils affected by NHS England’s new target.

Some £11 million of Leicester City Council’s budget could be at risk.

City council strategic director of adult social care Steven Forbes said: "It's ridiculous to threaten our base level funding. I struggle to find a word for it that is acceptable in the public domain.

"It's a potential threat of £10.7 million. It's 10 per cent of our budget. That £10.7 million underpins everything we do.

"We have had no option but to create a trajectory we know we can't achieve."

He warned the NHS England move would be counter productive because councils would slow discharges because they knew people were at least safe in hospital.